Check your conversion tracking tag

If you've set up Google Ads conversion tracking to see when your ads lead to valuable actions such as website purchases or calls to a phone number on your website, there are several ways for you to check that conversions are being recorded correctly. You can troubleshoot any problems with your conversion tracking tag (the snippet of code you or your webmaster installed on your website) if they aren't.

You can verify that Google Ads can "see" your tag and is recording conversions within your account.

You can use other tools and methods to check that the tag is installed in the right place and uses the right code parameters.

There are a few common problems to check for if conversions aren't being recorded properly.

Instructions

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Checking your conversion tracking status

Whether you just created a new conversion action and installed the conversion tracking tag (for website and certain phone call conversions requiring a tag), or want to confirm or troubleshoot an existing conversion action, you can check its tracking status from the Conversions page in your AdWords account.

In the conversions table, find the conversion action you want to check in the "Conversion" column, then look at the "Tracking status" column in that same row.

Here are the different tracking statuses you might see:

Unverified: We haven't verified that your tag has been put on your website yet. This takes a few hours. To make sure we see your tag, you can visit your conversion page (for example, the page confirming a purchase or mailing list sign-up). If it's been more than 24 hours and you still see this status, skip to "Confirming and verifying your conversion tracking tag" below.

No recent conversions: We've seen your conversion tracking tag, but haven't recorded any conversions in the last 7 days. This is most likely because you don't have any ads sending people to the page where you installed your tag. Make sure your campaigns are all running, and that people clicking on your ads are taken to the right webpage.

Recording conversions: We've seen your conversion tag and recorded conversions within the last 7 days.

Tag inactive: We no longer see your tag, and haven't recorded any conversions in the last 7 days. For more information, place your cursor over the speech bubble () next to the tracking status. You'll get the date we last saw your conversion tracking tag, as well as the last date we recorded any conversions, if ever.

If we never recorded any conversions, it's possible that the the tag is on the wrong web page, or you never received any traffic to this page from your ads.

If we recorded conversions before, but they stopped, something may have changed with your website or ad campaigns.

In either case, there could be something wrong with the way your conversion tag is installed on your site. If you have ads pointing to the right page and you're sure there's traffic on that page, see the troubleshooting section below.

Keep in mind: If you switch to cross-account conversion tracking, any conversion actions set up in your managed accounts will stop tracking conversions for new clicks, regardless of the status of your tag. The conversion action will, within its own window, continue to track conversions for those clicks that happened before you made the switch. When you opt into cross-account conversion tracking, you can only track conversions in the manager account.

Removed: This conversion action has been removed. You can add it back to your account by clicking the red "X" next to the conversion action name, then selecting Enabled.

Confirming and verifying your conversion tracking tag

After you (or your website manager) install the conversion tracking tag on your site, you can confirm that it's on the correct page and verify your tag by following the instructions below.

Go to the website on which you're tracking conversions and visit the conversion confirmation page. That's the page customers see after they've completed a conversion, like a "thank you" page after they make a purchase or sign up for a newsletter.

Check the source code for the page. In Google Chrome, click View, then click Developer, then View Source. You can also right-click to choose View Page Source. Steps will be different in other browsers.

Now look for the conversion tag code. If the tag was successfully placed, you'll see a comment tag that looks like this: <!-- Google Code for {Action name} Conversion Page -->. The {Action name} should be the one you entered earlier in the field "Action name."

Here are some options for verifying that conversion tracking and your tag are set up correctly. It’s best to use one of the first two options, since the other option requires you to click on your ad, and you’ll be charged for the click. (If you're very familiar with website code, see the "Using debugging tools" section below. It'll show you another way to verify conversion tracking without costing you a click.)

Wait for a conversion to show up in 24 hours
If you know that a click on your AdWords ad resulted in a conversion, and you know the click occurred after you activated conversion tracking, wait for the conversion to appear in your AdWords account.

Complete a test conversion on your site and wait for the conversion to appear on AdWords
Run a search for one of your active keywords on Google and click on your AdWords ad. You can then complete a test conversion on your site. After completing the conversion, it'll appear in your AdWords account within the next 24 hours.

After following the steps for one of these options, you can see conversions in your AdWords account by clicking the Campaigns tab, or by going to the Tools tab and selecting "Conversions."

Troubleshooting your conversion tracking tag

The security protocol (http or https) in your Conversion Tracking tag must match the security protocol of the page where you're tracking conversions.

If they don’t match, Conversion Tracking could under-report your conversions, and people might see an alert message as they attempt to complete a conversion on your website.

Conversion tracking generates tags that automatically detect the security level of a page, so they work with both http and https. If you didn’t generate your tags recently, and you’re having trouble because of inconsistent security protocols, we recommend generating a new tag and replacing the old one on your page.

The following example would be incorrect for an "https://" page, and could be fixed by replacing the "http://" with "https://":

Some content management systems or WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editors remove the asterisk from the /* <![CDATA[ */ and /* ]]> */ sections of your conversion tracking script.

If you use any form of visual editor to insert JavaScript into your pages, check to make sure it hasn't incorrectly changed the script by eliminating the asterisks in the CDATA code. If it has, add in asterisks in the second and sixth line of your tracking script so that it matches the correct version of the code.

The language="JavaScript" attribute is an old script tag attribute. In some browsers, and under certain circumstances, this can cause issues with the way the script is executed. To fix this, you’ll want to delete this section of code.

Each time a conversion tag runs, it makes a request to the following URL, where the “XXXXXX” will be your conversion ID (this number length varies):

http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/XXXXXXXX/

The request that's sent here includes a number of parameters—or values. You can review the requests that your tag sends to make sure it's working properly. When you do, look for these elements to confirm they match the conversion tag generated for the conversion action:

Conversion label: The unique label that matches the name of the conversion in your AdWords account.

Using a debugging tool, you can see the information sent between your web browser (also know as a client) and the server. This will help you examine the conversion tracking request sent by your browser and identify whether or not the correct conversion ID and label are included.

Available debugging tools

Browser

Tool

All

Firebug Lite

All

Charles

Chrome

Built-in Developer Tools (e.g. Resources)

Firefox

Live HTTP Headers

Firefox

Firebug

Internet Explorer

Fiddler

Safari

Built-in Activity window

Debugging with Chrome Developer Tools

Open in a new tab in Chrome.

Click the Chrome menu icon on the browser toolbar, select View, then Developer, and then Developer Tools.
If you don't see the Chrome menu, you can open Developer Tools by pressing Control - Shift - I keys (in Windows) or Command - Option - I (on a Mac).

Click on the Network tab.

Leave the developer tools window open.

Navigate to the page that contains the conversion tracking tag.

Look for the request: www.googleadservices.com.

Examine the components of the conversion tracking request to verify it matches your account and conversion name.

The number after www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/ should match your conversion ID, and the characters after &label= should match your conversion label. If they don't, this tag is most likely tied to a different conversion action.

To fix this, you may need to generate new conversion tag for this conversion action and place it on your site, or check with anyone else who has access to your website code to see if they've installed a conversion tracking tag for a different conversion action.

Keep in mind: If you switch to cross-account conversion tracking, any conversion actions set up in your managed accounts will stop tracking conversions for new clicks, regardless of the status of your tag. The conversion action will, within its own window, continue to track conversions for those clicks that happened before you made the switch. When you opt into cross-account conversion tracking, you can only track conversions in the manager account.